MD'ing Oregon & Washington Beaches

[Lenmcgold]

Looking for comments/experiences metal detecting on Northern Oregon and Central Wahington Coasts. Not like at popular So. Cal or Florida beaches, but possibility of shipwreck artifacts/coins etc. Any thoughts on this?
Thanks, Len

AT Pro
Pro Pinpointer
Vintage Garrett Cache Hunter BFO - 1973

 

[Tom_in_CA]

"possibility of shipwreck artifacts/coins" = zero to none.

The west coast (CA, OR, WA) was/is nothing like the gulf of mexico (ala "mel fisher" blah blah treasure coast, blah) stuff. Two big differences:

a) We did not have the shipping history of the legendary south American galleons on their way back to Europe, laden with silver and gold. Our west coast shipping is 1) short-lived compared to there, as this was the remotest ends of the world even into 1800s. and 2) our shipping is primarily industrial, fishing, commercial, etc..... Not sloppy wooden ships filled with coins, blah blah. Thus any shipwreck here is bound to be modern trawlers, fishing vessels, commercial stuff, etc... And even if old, only stuffed with commercial raw materials, or whatever. Only a VERY SHORT few years of some gold leaving CA, by ship, during the gold rush. But soon thereafter, the safer trans-contintental RR's took over.

b) Those beaches @ FL and gulf have long shallow shelves which invited shipwrecks, and strewn the resultant targets into possible beach-side sand. But no, not at all like our west coast topography. If a ship went down a mere few hundred yards off-shore, it was/is in inpenetrably deep water. As the coast line drops off instantly to depths which are simply not "beach side sand". Hence the singular gold rush ship found out there, they had to use frickin' submarines to reach it. Sure, a few ships beached right on sand, but not carrying the type of stuff you read about @ Florida.

c) yes Spanish galleons came back from the Phillipines in the 1700s, and skirted along our coast (From SF area southward, sorry, not OR or WA). Yet they were not of the cargo of the lore of what you read of in FL. These were returning with raw good from the orient: silks, wax, spices, porcelins, etc.... NOT gold and silver. At *best* they left Mexico with that ON THEIR WAY EASTWARD from the mother country of Mexico. But their return trip that skirted the west coast, had only the raw good they bought. But again, EVEN IF you knew where one went down, you'd need a submarine to reach it, and would be rewarded with wax globs and broken porcelin. Woohoo.

Hence, your best bet is to angle for fumble finger losses like the rest of us west coast beach hunters do. Especially when winter storms/swells erode the tourist beaches and wash out the sand

 

[Lenmcgold]

Tom - Really good information - you've done your homework.
Thanks, Len

 

[WaterWalker]

Sorry, see below

 

[WaterWalker]

I detected an Oregon beach once. What I observed was that the Oregonians go to the beach, get the food box out and put it on the sand, they then sit on the sand beside the box, put a blanket over them and then break out and start sipping on hot chocolate. Not many even thought about getting into the water.
I did find a few coins, nothing special. I have no plans on returning.
Here on the east coast, the summer is more of party time at the beach. More bathing suits, lost goods and warmer temps. Go south below the 35th parallel and stay warm.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

water-walker, you are exactly right in your observation of cold water beaches, versus warm-water beaches. There's always going to be a higher ratio of jewelry on beaches where people actually swim (w/o wet-suits). And not only necesssarily because they're *in* the water either. The fact of swimming means they're coming OUT of the water, with their finger shriveled and slippery d/t wet. And the humorous oft-repeated story of people "taking off their jewelry for safe-keeping before they go in for a swim" (and hiding it in their shoe, or handing it to another to "hold on to", etc....

Where I'm at in CA, we have a deep sea canyon finger just off-shore. So most of our beaches here ........ you'll turn blue trying to swim w/o a wet-suit on. Therefore you rarely see anyone past their waste, and only just "splashing around" in the shallows. Only a single beach in my area has some extensive shallows that reach further off-shore, and during some very hot months, can get tolerable enough to invite swimmers in. But for the most part, no, it's just people on the sand, not in the actual water.

CONTRAST THAT TO SOUTHERN CA (south of Pt. Conception), and you see SCORES of people IN the water, on any given day, frolicking about. Doh! Because they're getting those warmer equater swells circulating up from down south. And the water can be quite nice. So naturally their jewelry ratios go way up.

Still though, even on cold-water beaches like northern CA, OR, and WA, there is still going to be better jewelry hunting on beaches, than on turf or relicky type sites. Because of other functions that beaches have, besides actual swimming. Namely sunbathing (people lathering up with slippery suntan lotion). Frolicking motions with arms/hands, as people throw balls, frisbees, etc... People digging sand-castles (which creates a "pull" motion on the fingers). And don't forget, even just building sand castles provides for the wet/cold needed to shrink fingers, every-bit-as-much as actual swimming would do the same thing.

 

[WaterWalker]

Yep, Tom in CA, you are right about the cold water and lotion. Just thinking...I would go back to Iceland anytime, even for the beaches.
Check out the Blue Lagoon, I was there when they had only 13 rooms! A shame I did not have a water detector back then.
At one time when Iceland changed their coins, the old ones got dumped into the ocean from the top of a cliff.
I got down to the beach and just had a fun time picking up coins...no detector needed.
On another trip to Iceland, in a three weeks time frame, two parks yielded over 3,000 coins but not a single ring (two of us were detecting). It was fun detecting at 3am in twilight. It was hard to go to work at 7am!
Just goes to show that you can enjoy detecting anywhere. Even in Oregon I managed to pick up a standing Liberty quarter between the paved road and side walk. It is the quest, hunt and excitement of learning and returning that has me hooked. Even though I do 99% of my detecting in the water here in New England. I started 25 years ago detecting the same two beaches every weekend, today I have over 600 beaches plotted in my GPS and can not get to each one in any one year and still put between 400 and 500 hours in the water each year. What great memories we can make!

 

[Wandering Yoda]

That is a great post WW. Watching those folks dump all those coins in the ocean would've been a sight to see. A 1,000 coin week average from 2 parks is amazing!!